Torch - Fall 2012

Ms. Bruce and the Guidance Counsellors host progress meetings twice a year per grade. At these meeting, a team of 50 faculty members including Ms. Steele discuss student learning needs by grade and identify those who may need additional support, whether that be academic, social-emotional or behavioural. As a team, they discuss each child’s learning style (strengths and needs), review any presenting concerns and collaborate on strategies to address the learning needs of individual students. On a day-to-day basis in the Upper School, Guidance Counsellors look at the whole student experience. The Guidance Department offers a multitude of student services, including academic and university counselling, and provides ongoing documentation of the learning needs of identified students. They collaborate with students, teachers and parents to promote student success. “Teachers are invested in the ‘whole girl’ and they play a holistic, supportive role,” says Heather Johnstone, Head of Guidance, noting that counsellors follow-up with teachers about concerns related to student behaviour, actions and learning. “As Guidance Counsellors, our goal is to know the students, their academic needs, interests and skills, and to advocate for them. We help them figure out who they are as learners, guide them on the pathway to achieving whatever goals they have set for themselves and help them navigate their social-emotional needs.” In part, this is accomplished through continued monitoring, regular one-on-one meetings, grade group meetings and special events (grade and age-appropriate programs), in addition to Career Studies curriculum, which is a half-credit Guidance compulsory course. The school’s student information system allows faculty and staff to easily access information about each student, including her academic progress and participation in co-curricular activities. In the Middle School, Heather Grant supports the school lives of these students. “I have the opportunity to help students find and explore their passions and interests and to navigate who they are going to become,” says Ms. Grant, Middle School Guidance Counsellor and Director of Middle School Student Life. Each of the four Guidance Counsellors in the Senior School is responsible for advising two or three Houses. The strength of this system is that, by graduation, they know each student very well. “We have the opportunity to meet the girls in Grade 9 and to watch them develop into focused and articulate young women who have clear goals for the future,” Ms. Johnstone says. “Together, all the adults in each student’s life—TAs, Form Teachers, Grade Advisors, Guidance Counsellors, administrators, subject teachers, coaches and advisors—monitor and mentor each girl’s progress to ensure she is engaged in life at the school, focused in the classroom and prepared for her future.”

FALL 2012 THE TORCH 19